Welcome back to the blogosphere, well thanks. Been away for awhile. Today I attended a very inspirational talk by
Andrew Davis of tippingpoint labs where he shared ideas of how Humboldt County is failing in terms of promoting ourselves (yes I'm included in that), what the 'outside world' knows of us, and a little insight on what we need to do as a community whole to promote ourselves better.
Being a new business owner with very little business savvy, it was interesting to hear a perspective other than trying to get page hits and unique viewers to our websites. Really, isn't that how we win? I've dabbled quite a bit on this world wide internet and have come across so much information of people toting their page hit medals, but lack a real strategy. Wow, I'm probably boring the heck out of you right now. Really it's all interesting stuff that goes beyond your web presence but in your content. And for that, I've been a bit inspired to share a little about what happens around here behind the Redwood Curtain (a term in which I got to share with Andrew personally).
Andrew is from Boston on the east coast, and it turns out the next fella is also from 'round them parts. This all happened by accident really, as a friend an myself were headed down to Redwood Curtain Brewing for a nice refreshing IPA on happy day Tuesday. It turned out that a one man band by the name of The Suitcase Junket was in town and performing shortly after we arrived. Somehow I must've known that my camera would be needed and just happened to be slung around my shoulder along with my trust sb-600 flash and a little flash stand. I love when I'm prepared.
The Suitcase Junket has a rather interesting style that I really dug. Using three foot pedals, of which one slapped a traditional style bass hammer on a non-traditional style suitcase that he was sitting on, one for a top-hat symbol, and the other for a baby shoe against a metal gas can.
Unfortunately I didn't get any up close shots of his instrumentation, mostly because I was generally into just watching and listening (and enjoying the best IPA in Humboldt County of course). His songs were original and mixed with a sort of "flailing" guitar, that he often would turn into a more bluesy sound with the help of a glass slide.
Probably the most interesting for me was the Tuvan like throat singing that he busted out. I've always been a fan of Tuvan throat singing but never heard anything quite like his. The Junket had a much more high pitched beautiful whistle sound that I felt worked very well with his Tom Waits covers and his original folky jams.
If you want to learn more about The Suitcase Junket visit
his website. Thanks to
Redwood Curtain Brewing Company for bringing in a great, and surprising show. Hopefully more music like this will appear in the future.
Here both parents are at the nest doing a little cleanup. Pops is the one in the background finishing off some rodent flesh.
Here is a screenshot of both the mother and the father next to each other. You can sort of notice how much larger the mother (on the left) is then the father.
Looking cold out there today (4-19-2001).
It got me thinking about some studio strobist shots ideas for with the club. I've got some cool ideas that might make for some good promotional photos, with some ninja like fencing action. Now just if I had time to make it happen.
I had a rather basice setup (which I should have photographed) of one sb-600 on a flash stand, with a 30" shoot through umbrella. The other flash was on the other side and bounced off the ceiling. Above is the birthday woman Natalie and some friends she "hooked up" at a previous party.
The lighting setup worked rather well for a couple people or small groups but because the room was pretty tight it didn't work well for larger groups - where the edges would be blown out and the folks in the middle were under exposed. Here was a fun shot of Kevin and Joel.
While the dance party was going on and folks weren't coming into the "photo room," I would head out and snap some shots on the dance floor. Although not truly 'stobist' style, I was playing with mixing my sb-28 with some fun ambient light in the room. In this case there was a disco ball over in the corner.
Some of the most fun shots were taken with the golden lights hanging in the other room. Since it was the "Golden Party" (Au Yeah) I thought what better than to mix a bunch of long exposed golden light trails with some dance moves. The full gallery can be viewed here.
